Turkey is preparing to repatriate its citizens held on suspicion of Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) links after the US moved thousands of detainees from prisons run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria to Iraqi custody, Deutsche Welle’s Turkish edition reported on Friday, citing unnamed foreign ministry sources.
Iraqi officials say the number of Turkish nationals transferred so far is about 160.
Iraq’s justice minister, Khalid Shwani, told Kurdish outlet Rudaw that Iraq has received some 5,000 suspected Islamic State detainees from about 60 countries and expects the transfer process to be completed, with detainees either prosecuted under Iraqi law or repatriated depending on the case.
A separate account published by The Jerusalem Post, citing Shwani, put the number of Turks at 165 and said Baghdad is in contact with Ankara and that Turkey has “initially expressed” willingness to take back its citizens.
ISIL detainees were transferred after weeks of fighting in Syria between Damascus forces and the Kurdish-led SDF raised concerns about possible breakouts from detention sites.
Iraqi officials have said detainees transferred from Syria are being held at a high-security facility in Baghdad and are being interrogated as groundwork for prosecutions. Iraq’s courts can impose the death penalty in terrorism cases, a factor that has made some foreign governments and families reluctant to see detainees tried in Iraq.
ISIL seized large areas of Iraq and Syria in 2014, carrying out mass killings and abductions, including the enslavement of Yazidi women and girls in northern Iraq. Iraq declared victory over the group in 2017 with help from the US-led coalition, and the SDF captured the group’s last territorial holdout in Syria in 2019.